Last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference and its associated activities provided a showcase for Donald Trump as he was given the chance to deliver multiple speeches, mix with Nazis, and share a bear hug with Argentine Trump imitator Javier Milei.
Over the course of the weekend, Trump went big on bigotry as he spoke at the Black Conservative Federation Gala, using some of the most stereotypically racist language imaginable. That included saying that Black people liked him because he had been indicted multiple times. “My mug shot, we’ve all seen the mug shot,” said Trump. “And you know who embraced it more than anybody else: the Black population.”
Trump got his chance to deliver his main-event speech at CPAC on Saturday, and that speech wasn’t just riddled with odd statements, it was also overrun with lies. Trump lied about Russia. He lied about Iran. He lied about the border wall, and China, and electric cars. He even lied about Al Capone, the Chicago gangster. He also referred to his wife as “Mercedes.”
But the speech wasn’t just disturbing because of its lies and distortions. This was a genuinely bizarre event. This was not only a speech utterly divorced from reality but also one that pushed a vision that’s darker, bleaker, and more apocalyptic than anything Trump voiced four years ago.
This was either the ramblings of a madman or the last desperate push of a timeshare salesman who can tell that his marks are about to leave. Or both.
Before the speech, The New York Times gave a preview of what Trump was going to say, in terms only the Times would employ. “In Speech at CPAC, Trump Will Outline a Thriving U.S. Amid a Second Term,” said the Times headline, before explaining in the subhead, “Former President Donald J. Trump has so far largely campaigned on a dark vision of the United States under President Biden. A speech on Saturday will take a different approach.”
What was that different approach? As the Times explained shortly after the speech, Trump “cast one nearly utopian vision of the country’s future and one reminiscent of a postapocalyptic movie.” Which sounds like the exact same approach he’s taken this entire election cycle so far.
Because it was. Not only did Trump continue to create these opposing visions, the CPAC speech also took both ends of the spectrum to ridiculous—and terrifying—extremes.
Much of Trump’s speech was devoted to describing a vision of America that might have been lifted from the opening moments of a “Terminator” movie—the part that comes after the bombs fell. If Joe Biden is reelected, said Trump, everything is going to “collapse.” Medicare? Collapse. Social Security? Collapse. Education? Collapse. He predicted that the United States would be “starved of energy” and plagued by “constant blackouts,” while the terrorist group Hamas rampages through American streets.
And while this postapocalyptic vision might be short a few rampaging machines, Trump told his audience that “40 to 50 million” undocumented migrants “stampeding” across the southern border while “weaponized law enforcement hunts for conservatives and people of faith.” America, said Trump, would “sink to levels that were unimaginable” and face “obliteration.”
Somehow, this doesn’t seem like the “considerably more optimistic” speech that the Times article promised before Trump took the mic. So why did The New York Times run a pre-speech article filled with a glowing assessment of how Trump would deliver an upbeat, all-lollipops-and-balloons vision of a glowing future? Because they printed exactly what Trump’s handlers told them to say.
But while Mr. Trump has largely cast his vision of the United States in dark terms during his third run for office, his CPAC speech will present a brighter vision for the country brought about by a second Trump term, said the officials, who requested anonymity to discuss campaign strategy freely.
Please ignore everything collapsing, the hordes of terrorists, and anti-Christian cops chasing Americans through dark streets. This is an upbeat speech.
The New York Times sat down with Trump’s campaign team, wrote an article about what Trump was going to say based on what that campaign team told them, and decorated it with thoughts about how Trump would use “a sense of nostalgia” to bring America’s back to those great days of Trump. They don’t mention how this included a collapsing economy amid a badly mishandled pandemic.
Trump’s speech did include an alternate vision to the one in which Christians are hunted for sport. Should America reelect Trump, according to Trump, it would be “richer and safer and stronger and prouder and more beautiful than ever before.” Crime would be ended “in one day.”
But missing from Trump’s speech—and from The New York Times’ reporting—was any concern about how Trump planned to do that.
In case no one has noticed, Joe Biden is president right now. Social Security is not collapsing. Medicare is doing fine. Not only does America have all the energy it needs, it’s actually producing more energy—both renewable energy and oil and gas—than at any point in history. Illegal border crossings are drastically down. The stock market is near record highs. Suburbs are … suburban.
Trump doesn’t bother to explain why any of these things would be different in a second Biden term. And no one seems to be concerned about this.
Also missing from much of the coverage of CPAC was how Trump’s speech was filled with non sequiturs, rambling references to a military officer he called “Raisin Caine,” and a declaration that his disconnected, incoherent claims were not cognitive impairment but “total genius.”
They weren’t. But considering how much of the media seems determined to cut around every mistake, false claim, and outbreak of pure bizarreness to provide a sanitized version of Trump, it’s not hard to see how many Americans might still think so.
And now, about that timeshare …
